Rememberance
by Striking Falcon
Summary: An IK one shot somewhere between 'Vengeance' and 'Lands Divided'


{Disclaimer: Inuyasha doesn't belong to me, so please don't sue. I'm just borrowing him.}

SF: This is just something that struck me. I thought it was really sweet, so I decided to post it. (Warning: Inu-chan is a tad OCC.)

Remembrance

Inuyasha quietly regarded the land around him, his eyes surveying the features in the dark. He watched over his slumbering comrades below, each unwittingly making a slight noise in their stupor. He smiled vaguely and looked away into the distance. A minute light caught his attention. It was a small torch burning in the distance. He studied it curiously for a moment, then realized what it was. A sigh escaped his lips and he lowered his head sadly. 

'Why didn't I remember before now?' he asked himself. 'I wouldn't have come this way if I had. What am I going to do?' Inuyasha closed his eyes and fought back the tears that threatened to spill down his cheeks. 

A tiny grunt from below captured his attention and he opened his waterlogged eyes to the branch underneath him.

Kagome was reaching for the last branch when the one she was steadying herself on snapped. She let out a gasp, sure she was going to fall. Inuyasha reached out effortlessly and grabbed her wrist, stopping her rapid decent to the ground. He pulled her to his branch and placed her between the trunk of the tree and his back. She panted, trying desperately to catch her breath. Inuyasha scowled angrily.

"What are you doing awake?" he asked, his annoyance covering up his relief.

"I don't know." He stared at her, his face relaying his confusion. Kagome sighed. "I was asleep, but something woke me up. It was like someone calling my name, you know, but no one was around and I didn't hear anything. I looked around at the others and then looked at you. You looked so…" at this she stopped, trying to figure out what exactly it was she saw in her friend's appearance that seemed so strange.

"So what?"

Kagome returned her thoughts to him and blushed. "I don't know. But I had to get to you."

Inuyasha smiled, his hair hiding his face. "But I thought humans can't climb." 

Kagome scowled and opened her mouth to say something, but something in the distance caught her attention. "Inuyasha, what's that?" she asked. He followed her pointing finger to the fire in the distance, and lowered his head. Kagome leaned over his shoulder to get a better look at his face. 

"Inuyasha?" He opened his eyes and gazed at it, ignoring her questioning eyes. "You know, don't you?" 

He nodded his head slowly. "Its my mother's grave." 

Kagome gasped. "Your mother's grave? I don't understand." 

Inuyasha sighed, his suddenly changed mood catching Kagome by surprise. "Every year my mother's family burns a torch in memory of her death. It's a call for all of the family to gather and mourn together." 

Kagome nodded in understanding, then climbed on his back.

"Hey! What do you think you're doing?" he hissed. 

Kagome adjusted her legs around his hips. "You said it was a call to mourn, right? Let's go."

He scoffed. "What makes you think I'm going down there?" 

Kagome gasped in disbelief. "You're not going? Why?" 

Inuyasha tried to tug her arms from around his neck. When he realized she wasn't letting go until he told her, he shrugged and gave up.

"You don't know my mother's people. They treated her like an outcast after I was born. The only thing that kept them from kicking us into the woods around us was my father. They don't want me down there."

Kagome snorted and he glanced at her in surprise. "Are you serious?" she asked him. "You have every right to be down there. It's YOUR mother , after all. Who cares about what they think?" 

Inuyasha silently agreed with her passionate outburst. He made up his mind. 

"Fine, if it'll keep you from waking Sango and the others, then lets go."

He assured himself of her grip, then launched them toward the light. As the light grew closer, he started to feel funny. Not sensing a demon nearby, he shrugged off the feeling and landed in front of the torch in the courtyard. 

"Wow," Kagome muttered, her eyes drinking in the garden around them. Flowers of every color bloomed around them, glowing as though enchanted under the fire's light. Inuyasha shook his head in amusement at his companion's amazement.

"She used to sit and watch me play right here," he said softly, walking up to the torch. Kagome slid down and stood beside him. 

"She always had this look on her face, like she was studying me, enjoying how happy I looked." Kagome turned her attention to the house behind the light. 

"And here?" she said, her head tilting to the house. 

Inuyasha smiled softly. "That's the house we lived in." 

Kagome smiled and tugged him across the courtyard toward the house. "Come on. Let's see if the people who live here now will let us in." 

Inuyasha jerked his arm out of her hands. "No one's lived here for years. Not since…"

"Since your mother died?" Kagome finished. 

Inuyasha shook his head. "Not since I left." 

"Then this is your house!" Kagome said. "You could stay here if you wanted to."

"No I can't!" he yelled, forgetting the sleeping world around them. Kagome stepped back nervously.

"Why?" she asked, her voice small and timid. Inuyasha sighed. He hadn't meant to startle her.

"Why do you think the house has been empty for so long? Because the people think its cursed!" 

He scowled at the nearby cottages. 

"Its cursed because of me! As I said before we got here, they don't want me here!!" 

Kagome glanced at him sadly, then ran past him to the house. 

"Hey, where are you going?!" he hissed at her back. She reached the door and smiled. "No one lives here, right. That means we can go in!" She looked at Inuyasha, her eyes huge and pleading. 

He sighed. "Alright. Jeez, I must be crazy to let you talk me into this." 

He opened the door and showed her around, past vast rooms, to the back of the house and the last two rooms.

"This is my room," he said, sliding back the door to the nearest room. Kagome stepped inside uncertainly. 

There in a corner was a tiny cot, and toys of various kinds were scattered across the room. Kagome picked up a ball at her feet. She imagined Inuyasha as a child, innocently playing, tossing the ball in the air happily. She smiled and put the ball gently on the floor, exiting the room. Inuyasha paused at the next door for a moment, then stepped inside. "This is my mother's room."

Kagome walked in as Inuyasha crossed to the other side of the room. The bed was richly colored in numerous fabrics, and all around it were chests of many sizes. Inuyasha leaned down and picked up a small box on one of the bed's pillows. He reached inside and removed a small golden necklace. He caressed the pendant, and the small garnet stone in the center of it, tenderly. Inuyasha remembered the first time he asked his mother about it.

"Mother, what's that?" little Inuyasha asked, his tiny hand grasping the glittering necklace in his palm. 

His mother smiled, "This is a necklace your father gave to me. I never take it off." 

Inuyasha tilted his head in wonder as the tiny pendant sparkled in the light, the blood-red stone seemingly soaking in the light around it. "Why?"

"Because it comforts me," she responded, a far away look in her eyes. "When I miss your father terribly, it reminds me of him. And it seems like he's always there when I need him, no matter where I go, as long as I wear this necklace. It connects me to him." Inuyasha smiled at his mother, regaining her attention. 

"Will I ever feel like that for someone, Mother?" She nodded and picked him up, carrying him into the house for dinner. 

Inuyasha huffed. 'I've never felt like that,' he thought to himself. The memory of his father's death, or better said, his mother's reaction to his father's death resurfaced. She had cried, holding onto him for dear life. When her tears finally dried, she removed the necklace and placed it in this box. After she died, he buried her and left, never thinking of the necklace again.

'Never….Until now,' he said to himself, remembering his unusually quiet companion. A tear slid down his cheek as he turned to Kagome. She had sat down, on her knees, in the middle of the room. She raised one hand to him, her silent permission for him to come to her. Inuyasha ignored the tear and the hand to study her face. There was sadness, concern, but not pity. 

'Good,' he thought. 'I don't need her pity.' He continued to stare uneasily at her, until his resolve broke. 

'What would it hurt?' he asked himself. 'All I'll do is let her hug me, and she'll be satisfied.' Inuyasha crossed the room and lowered himself over her lap, his knees touching the floor by her sides. When one of Kagome's hands softly pushed him closer to her, the other hand gently guiding his head to her shoulder, he started to cry. Inuyasha nuzzled his face against her neck, his arms by his sides, and allowed the silent tears to well out of his eyes and down Kagome's neck. 

'I can do this with her,' he thought, 'I can do this with her and she won't laugh. She won't judge.' 

His arms stayed at his sides, the necklace clutched in his hand. Kagome started to tenderly stroke his hair, from his ears to the ends at his waist, and muttered some incoherent word of encouragement and understanding. Inuyasha remembered how the other children treated him, how the adults treated him, and how they all abandoned his mother when she needed them. 'I couldn't protect her,' he thought, tears welling up. He slumped in his sorrow, allowing Kagome to hold him up as she slowly rubbed his shaking shoulders. 

Inuyasha finally stepped out of his thoughts to focus on the girl embracing him so tenderly. He sensed sorrow, concern, gentle understanding, and the one emotion that, if it hadn't been so intense, he wouldn't have believed it existed. 

Love. 

Love rippled off of her like a stone thrown in a still pond, and if she knew it, she never let it show. It surrounded him, soothing him like the fingers in his hair. It was more powerful than any energy the Tetsusaiga could ever produce. He let out a surprised sob and Kagome rocked him gently, it never occurring to her that she could be the cause of such a sound. He let the emotion fill him until he could take no more. That's when Inuyasha heard her words, Kagome repeating them like she could say nothing else. 

"I'm right here. I won't leave you."

Inuyasha rolled slowly to his feet, his arms finally surrounding her and lifting her off her knees and against his chest. His head didn't move from its spot on her shoulder, but his nose smelled her hair, filing to memory the scent and feel of it against his skin. He raised his head, his eyes closed.

"How do you see me, Kagome?" 

Kagome tilted her head slightly against his; not realizing her feet weren't reaching the ground, but in fact hovered above it.

"How do I see you?" she repeated. Inuyasha nodded his head.

"Well," she started, her caress in his hair never ceasing. "I see you as someone who is trying to be better than himself." she said thoughtfully. 

"Its like you're at war with yourself. You want to be unconcerned about the world around you, yet when one of us is in trouble, you don't stop to think about helping us." Inuyasha stiffened. 

"I see you as someone who is better than what he is trying to become. Who's perfect just the way he is." 

She absentmindedly kissed his temple. 

The unexpected action, and the feel of love intensifying even further, shocked Inuyasha into snapping his eyes open. Kagome gazed at the wall behind him, her feelings for him written on her face. Inuyasha gently lowered her to the ground, knowing now what he wanted to do. 

"Kagome, I want you to have this," he said, opening his hand and revealing the necklace.

"Inuyasha I can't-"

"I want you to take it." He looked in her eyes with a feeling she'd never seen before. 

"Please." 

She nodded and pulled the necklace over her head and around her neck, the garnet stone glinting in the strained light of the torch. 

"Its beautiful," she whispered. 

"Look at your shirt," he sighed. Kagome tugged at the tearstained fabric and shrugged.

"Its nothing." 

Inuyasha scowled, feeling some of his old self coming back, and wrapped his haori around her shoulders. 

Kagome blushed, murmuring her thanks as they walked out of the house and into the courtyard outside. Kagome climbed on his back and they were off, traveling back to camp. Inuyasha reached the site and was kneeling down for Kagome to slide to the ground when he realized she was asleep. He reached around and grabbed her, intending to place her in her sleeping bag. Inuyasha shook his head and decided against the idea. 

Instead he jumped back to his branch in the tree above, taking Kagome with him. When he reached a branch high enough for the others not to see them, Inuyasha placed Kagome in his lap, adjusting the fire rat cloth to better cover her sleeping form. As he tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear, he looked down at the necklace. Kagome had grasped it in her sleep and one finger was wrapped possessively in the chain. Inuyasha smiled.

"I want you to have this, Kagome, because its my promise to you," Inuyasha whispered. Kagome sighed and snuggled closer to his chest. Inuyasha blushed slightly, his thoughts scattering for a moment, then continued:

"I promise, if you need me, no matter where you are, I will come to you." He remembered his mother's words.

"When I need him, no matter where I go, he's always there."

Inuyasha watched the sun come up, those words rounding his thoughts. 'Because you mean more to me than you'll ever know.' The blood stone glittered, then darkened, as if promising as well.

FIN

SF: Just in case anyone cares, garnets are my birthstone, and I thought it would make a perfect addition to the necklace, since it does resemble blood. Did you know that they were once ingested to cure stomach problems? I hope you enjoyed it!


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